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Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Retrospective #18: Paleolithic Nutrition and the Archevore Diet

“The modern dietary regimen known as
the Paleolithic diet…is a nutritional plan based on the presumed ancient diet
of wild plants and animals that various human species habitually consumed
during the Paleolithic” era, according to Wikipedia. A basic precept of this
Way of Eating is that it “ended with the development of agriculture” at the
advent of the Neolithic era. Hence, the “contemporary Paleolithic diet consists
mainly of meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, roots, and nuts, and excludes grains,
legumes, dairy, refined sugar, and processed oils” (Wikipedia).

“Paleolithic nutrition is based on
the premise that modern humans are genetically
adapted to the diet of their Paleolithic ancestors, and that humans have
scarcely changed since the dawn of agriculture, and therefore that an ideal
diet for human health and well-being is one that resembles this ancestral
diet.” From the onset of our hunter-gatherer stage of evolutionary development
some 2.5 million years ago, hominids have been carnivorous animals. We ate
whatever we could hunt or catch or forage. We fed; then we fasted until the
next kill or catch or gather. We most likely ate the whole animal, including
organs, blood, fat and bone marrow, and then used the hide and bone.

“The ancestral human diet is inferred
from historical and ethnographic studies of modern-day hunter-gatherers as well
as archeological finds, anthropological evidence and application of optimal
foraging theory,” again quoting Wikipedia. Today, aPaleo diet would include cultivated plants and domesticated animal
meat as an alternative to foraging and hunting. However, the Industrial
Revolution led to the large-scale development of mechanized food processing
techniques for these cultivated plants. Refined cereals, refined sugars, and
refined vegetable oils have become major components of Western diets [such as
the Standard American Diet (SAD)]. Intensive livestock farming methods produce fattier
(corn fed) meat; while selective breeding has produced leaner pork and poultry
with greater amounts of white meat. Hybridization also resulted in larger,
sweeter fruits. Modern transportation systems provide year-round availability of
every sort of food. The Paleo diet rejects some of these newer foods as
“Neolithic agents of disease,” in the words of Kurt G. Harris, MD, author of
the now defunct Archevore blog.

These modern-day developments are
described (and deplored) in Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” where he
slams the industrial production of corn-fed, feed lot beef and cooped-up chickens.
He followed up with “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” and “Food Rules,”
where he defined “real” food and coined the meme, “EAT FOOD, NOT TOO MUCH,
MOSTLY PLANTS.” I am in accord with Pollan, insofar as his definition of “real”
food is concerned. However, with respect to MOSTLY PLANTS, I like the thinking
of Dr. Harris. Harris developed his interest in health and nutrition after reading
Gary Taubes’s “Good Calories – Bad Calories,” Thank you, Gary Taubes.

“The Archevore diet and approach to
health is centered on a simple idea – that the diseases of civilization are
largely related to the abandonment of the metabolic conditions we evolved under
– what I have called the “evolutionary metabolic milieu” EM2, Harris
explained. “I believe we can make sense of many of the diseases prevalent now
and relate them to some simple but profound changes that have occurred with the
introduction of agriculture and the more recent industrialization of our
foodways. These changes are related to how the food environment, including
its availability, interacts with the metabolic environment of our bodies.”

Harris said that his conception of the
“evolutionary metabolic milieu” is “not derived from a single science or field
of inquiry, but draws first on medical sciences like biochemistry and
endocrinology, and only then looks back with history and paleoanthropology.” “It
is becoming clear now that many of the diseases afflicting humanity are not
a natural part of the aging process, but are side effects of technology and
other powerful cultural changes in the way we eat and live that have occurred
since the dawn of agriculture roughly 10,000 years ago. These changes seem to
center largely on the sequential introduction of what I call the
Neolithic agents of disease – wheat, excess fructose, and excess linoleic acid.”
Harris “nailed it” to the “Wittenberg” door 8 years ago, then disappeared. Dr.
Harris’s “12 step program to remove the Neolithic agents of disease in an
efficient and practical manner” will be the subject of the next Retrospective. It could be as transformative to your life as Martin Luther’s ninety-five
theses.

About Me

I was diagnosed a Type 2 diabetic in 1986. I started a Very Low Carb diet (Atkins Induction) in 2002 to lose weight. I didn’t realize at the time that it would put my diabetes in clinical remission, or that I would be able to give up almost all of my oral diabetes meds. I also didn’t understand that, as I lost weight and continued to eat Very Low Carb, my blood lipids would dramatically improve (doubling my HDL and cutting my triglycerides by 2/3rds) and that my blood pressure would drop from 130/90 to 110/70 on the same meds.
Over the years I changed from Atkins to the Bernstein Diet (designed for diabetics) and, altogether lost 170 pounds. I later regained some and then lost some. As long as I eat Very Low Carb, I am not hungry and I have lots of energy. And I no longer have any of the indications of Metabolic Syndrome.
My goal, as long as I have excess body fat, is to remain continuously in a ketogenic state, both for blood glucose regulation and continued weight loss. I expect that this regimen will continue to provide the benefits of reduced systemic inflammation, improved blood lipids and lower blood pressure as well.